15 April 08
Citizen Science Is My Life
We’re off on a birding trip to Texas in a couple of days, and we’ve been frantically trying to pull things together before then. One of which is getting the Yolo County Breeding Bird Atlas project underway. This will be a five-year project to inventory the birds breeding in Yolo County to a five-kilometer grid cell resolution. Somehow I’ve ended up being the volunteer data manager for the project, the biggest chore of late being producing a set of maps for the grid cells we’re surveying this year (the maps are available at the link above).
On clear evenings I’m still hard at work making variable star observations. I am not very quick at the process yet and seem to manage only two stars or so per session, but I presume I will get more efficient over time. It is fun the morning after to enter the data, since they get posted immediately on the AAVSO website. It’s great to be able to look at a graph of the change of a star’s brightness and see your own observations pooled together with everybody else’s. Here is an example of the light curve graph for the star R Canis Minoris. My own observations are the three points at right on the graph highlighted in a purple box.
13 April 08
Rediscoverng the Parsnip
My father loved parsnips. To me they were an unnecessary white vegetable at Christmas, competing with the brussels sprouts my mother had me peel and cut crosses in the base of, sweet potatoes or yams, white potatoes, gravy, and turkey. (We didn’t really do Thanksgiving in Madrid: it was a school night.)
I tried growing them this year, and a row of them sits outside. I pulled up a bunch this morning, and sautéed them with brussels sprouts (cut in half, not with a cross) in olive oil, till they both caramelized in the pan. It was delicious.
Our high temperatures over the past couple of days make me want to fill the garden with summer vegetables, but it can still get cold enough to make that a bad idea. The parsnips and snap peas will need to be eaten soon, though…
8 April 08
Second Week
In this second week of the season, the Giants today managed to win their second game of the year, in extra innings even. Nobody has high expectations for the Giants this year, so we’ll take wins when we get them. On the other side of the continent, Bill Buckner threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Opening Day at Fenway Park to a very emotional standing ovation. The Red Sox then went on to beat the Detroit Tigers 5-0, who now have a surprisingly horrible record of 0 and 7.
We’re going to the opening game of the River Cats this Friday! Should be fun.
4 April 08
Ink Under the Fingernails
I dropped and broke the water jug (it wasn’t empty), I left the binder in the wrong place, I lost my glasses, I’m behind on everything at home, at work, and in the garden.
Breathe, and get ink under the fingernails. I did. My, that feels better.
In other news and to get some perspective, one of my coworkers was rescued from the San Jacinto Mountains yesterday having hiked in the day before to retrieve a radio collar from one of our tagged lions. He twisted his knee (don’t know quite how badly he’s hurt yet, but he couldn’t walk). He was luckily a) with a colleague, b) carrying a GPS emergency beacon, which he activated at six the night before. They made a shelter (which didn’t cover his hurt leg, which he had to keep extended and which got rained on in the same rainstorm that delayed the Dodger/Giants game). (At this time of year it could still have turned into a blizzard…)
30 March 08
Rolling Opener
It’s getting hard to tell when the baseball season starts. The A’s and Red Sox opened the season on this past Tuesday with a pair of games played in Japan. Meanwhile, the rest of the teams were playing their final week of exhibition games. Today, there were two exhibition games, but the Washington Nationals opened their season with a game at home against the Atlanta Braves. President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch, and promptly got booed. The rest of the teams start off their season tomorrow and Tuesday.
29 March 08
Shades of Gray with a Splash of Orange
When I first pulled out the freeway daisies in front of the house for a herb garden, I had this vague notion I wanted it to be predominantly gray. This doesn’t work very well if what you want are herbs that you use all the time, such as parsley, cilantro, or basil, but I thought I could hide them in among the lavenders and sages (and artichokes) and it would mostly be gray. (Note to self: never, ever can sorrel be hidden among gray; it perks up in its yellow green perkiness in pure defiance, but can’t bring myself to pull it out, so delicious is it…)
I made some mistakes — part of the gardening rite of passage — and it turns out that most of the items that have since been pulled out have tended to the yellow-green rather than blue-green/gray. The latest casualty was the lemon verbena that never really recovered from the frost.
What I didn’t plan for, though, was the delightful colonization by California poppies. They can, and do, take over, but who could mind it? And if they really do crowd out something, they’re easy to pull out (and will certainly come back next year).
The orange sets off the gray to perfection. I’m trying to focus on the rest of the flowers in this garden being bluish purple. I finally planted the olive tree Jennifer suggested a couple of years ago and though it will grow very slowly it will be the focal point.
Garden design is a difficult and serious art, but the good news is, even if you don’t know what you’re doing, most things will reward you anyway.
27 March 08
Lights Out Earth Hour
On March 29th at 8 PM local time the World Wildlife Fund is inviting everyone to turn off their lights for an hour, an Earth Hour to make a statement about energy use and climate change. What to do then? March 29th also marks the start of the 6th annual National Dark-Sky Week Celebration organized by the International Dark-Sky Association. It’s a great chance to get out and do some stargazing!
26 March 08
Tired: Let Me Count the Ways (Then Name Them)
Nicole of Turning Leaves just posted about how we lack words for states of tiredness.
Not words for “tired” — we have plenty of those. She wants words to describe these feelings:
There is the wonderful fatigue of relief. There is the foul mood of not having slept at all, or worse, having slept tiny dribs and drabs while in an uncomfortable position. There is the nervy sensation of having had a chance to really sleep, but not being able to.
There are several I’d add: the irritable fatigue of trying to get some sleep in a hospital but being continually woken by officious nursing staff taking readings and changing drips at all hours of the night (and day). The sweet, salty but aching fatigue of a long bike ride (or hike or run or aerobics class) and the sweet, salty but utterly different aching of a day spent digging in the garden. The honey-fatigue of deep relaxation, such as that following a massage. The monotonous and monochrome fatigue of depression. The fatigue of having really been under sniper fire, instead of just misspeaking about it, and not just for a brief trip to an airport tarmac but for days, weeks, or even years, the miracle of adrenaline finally giving out with disastrous consequences. The long slow blank fatigue of hunger. The deep fatigue following energetic sex.
Any ideas for words for any of these states of being?
26 March 08
Variable Nights
I got clouded out this evening. T Tauri and Z Ursae Majoris will have to wait until another time.
With my Messier survey well under way, I have been getting started at what seems to be my next astronomical adventure. This is being a variable star observer. A variable star is, simply put, a star that varies in brightness over a period of time, whether from minutes to decades. There has been a long tradition of amateur astronomers recording data about the brightnesses of variable star — the largest organization coordinating such activities, the American Association of Variable Star Observers, dates back to 1911.
I did some variable star observing almost 10 years ago, when we were living up the mountain in Santa Barbara, and am now back into it. I enjoy looking at faint fuzzy galaxies under dark skies as much as the next observer, but in the bright skies I live under, the faint fuzzies are either a) invisible or b) dim, washed out, and completely lacking in drama. Variable star observing is quite a different path to take. It’s a lot of fun. First, there are lots of stars to follow, no matter how bright the skies are or how modest your optical equipment is. Second, I love looking at star charts, and estimating things — the standard procedure in making visual observations is to interpolate the brightness of the variable star from precise measurements of the brightness of comparison stars as printed on the star chart. Third, it’s fun to climb the skill ladder as an observer. Finally, there is lots of interesting science to learn about in the process. Even a basic question like “what are the different types of stars” is now of immediate concern.
Tomorrow night is expected to be cloudy again. Dang.
23 March 08
Five-year Retrospective
Last week was the five-year anniversary of the start of the disaster in Iraq. We started Feathers of Hope shortly afterwards. The blogosphere was teeming with political commentary; we elected not to do much of that, but to focus on our little spot in this part of the Central Valley. It doesn’t mean we’re not political or don’t read (still) political blogs, but our choice (much like Beth’s, I think: Cassandra Pages turned five a couple of days ago) was not to write much about politics.
I still think that was the right decision. What can we add? The words still fly fast and furious and we’re still in the middle of the disaster in Iraq. We are hoping for a change this November. I think Obama’s speech on Tuesday is the most important I’ve heard in my lifetime (possibly with the exception of King’s, though I was nine and living in Madrid at the time). Whether he can prevail through the crud that will undoubtedly be hurled his way first by the Clinton campaign and then by the Republicans will remain to be seen.
There are California poppies in bloom outside. Today I saw the first Western Kingbird of the year. The Swainson’s hawks have been back a week and have sent most of the red-tails to the foothills already. I can still look and take delight in these things despite the stress/funk cycle that I’ve been mired in.
Thanks for sticking with us for all these years.